Posted
by
Soulskillon Wednesday April 15, 2009 @08:58AM
from the running-man dept.

willith writes "The SF Chronicle reports on the results of the International Space Station Node 3 naming contest (which we previously discussed). Comedian and fake-pundit Stephen Colbert conducted a bombastic write-in campaign and repeatedly urged his show's fan base (the 'Colbert Nation') to stuff the ballot box with his name, which resulted in 'Colbert' coming in first in the write-in contest with almost a quarter-million votes. Although the Node 3 component will not be named 'Colbert' — NASA has instead chosen to call it 'Tranquility' — one of the Node 3 components will bear the honor: the second ISS treadmill, which will be installed in Node 3, will be named the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill. The formal announcement was made on the air yesterday at 22:30 EDT on the Colbert Report by astronaut Sunita Williams."

From that, we know that Tranquility is under 114,427... but we also know [nasa.gov] the relative percentages of the 4 that NASA proposed (which gives us: Earthrise : 24k; Legacy : 35k; Venture: 21k), the total number of votes, and that there were another 4 above Tranquility in the rankings... even if there was a multi-way tie between Xenu/Socialvibe/Buddy/Ubuntu and Tranquility, and Synergy and Vision got negligible results... Tranquility couldn't have gotten more than 86k votes.

A social networking website that apparently doesn't know how to sanitize its databases.

From Wikipedia:

In December 2005, myYearbook was down for about a half hour after locker abuse. A user by the name of Thirtysixway used the locker feature to upload PHP files and send out masses of Email. Over 30,000 emails were sent and caused one of the servers to go down. After this incident, myYearbook filters out files that can be executed or illegal.

The results of this poll seem to suggest otherwise. Little Bobby Table's mom would be proud.

Maybe they figured out that everyone immediately jumped to Firefly when they heard Serenity, and they didn't want that association. On the other hand, I question the wisdom of giving it a name that already is hugely significant in the annals of space travel, since it was also the name of the Apollo 11 moon landing site, but what are you gonna do. Every name has some issue with it.

I would have liked them to name the commode after Colbert instead, but this is a pretty clever compromise on its own, and its in keeping with the government's practice of creating cumbersome acronyms for ordinary objects, so I guess it works.

I'm sure the eggheads at NASA started out with the best of intentions where this poll is concerned. Then Steve Colbert came along and hijacked the process (and I'm not pointing fingers, it's Colbert's job to fuck with things and he did an admirable job of it) and the eggheads were left to figure out some other way forward. That's the reality of the situation. The psychologically-healthy way of dealing with that reality is to shrug your shoulders, silently congratulate Steve Colbert on a job well done, and move on. Taking it personally and deciding that NASA has delivered a "slap in the face" is the route to misery.

Also consider - how many times are you actually going to hear the name of that module over the next 10 years? Maybe during the week when they launch and assemble it. After that, will we be reading items about a new crew blasting off to visit the Harmony module, or Serenity, or Colbert? Here's a challenge for you: without looking anything up on the web, name 2 others modules currently comprising the ISS.

Probably not very long, really. The art of the TLA, and the related art of the backronym, are practiced in highly refined form by government agencies and the aerospace industry. NASA, being formed from the union of those sets, brings those arts very near to perfection. It's almost instinctual for them.

If you don't want people to vote often, perhaps you should produce a ballot box that doesn't permit stuffing. It's not rocket science, there's numerous implementations freely available, and whining about the will of the public doesn't change that. If NASA has proven that certain entries came from certain specific individuals and thus they have condensed their entries, let them announce as much. Otherwise they're just making themselves liars.

That made them liars up front when they were soliciting votes which mean nothing. I guess our national elections demonstrated that people would feel like a part of democracy even when the votes aren't counted, though...

You are comparing a non-scientific voting process with no provision to prevent ballot stuffing and which came with a disclaimer saying that the results weren't binding to an actual election? I think you've ventured away from the reservation on this one....

Seems like NASA learned a valuable lesson about the utter foolishness of using Internet polls to make any kind of even vaguely significant decision. I see nothing wrong with the direction they went, except for the fact that they decided to try and poll the Internet in the first place.

Basically they chose to ignore the poll. The name they chose, "Tranquility", was like in 8th place.

Easy solution: Next time I see a story of NASA putting something to a vote, I'll ignore it. Won't read, won't vote, won't care as it's not real as they'll ignore both the poll and the write-ins. Slashdot editors and everyone else feel free to do the same. I think this whole thing was very unserious and unprofessional and think less of NASA for it. Great anti-PR campaign, and all PR is definately not good PR for them.

Yeah, you know...aside from that whole Mars Rover thing (5+ years on a 4 month plan...better return on time planned than Gilligan's Island "3 hour tour"

Or the successful repair/upgrade missions to the Hubble Space Telescope

Or, you know, building a space station...

Or any of the 2700 other successes they've had. Yes, you're right...the manned program...not going so good...but considering that they'd jettison it if they weren't forced to keep it by Washington...they're doin alright.

While I think it's cool that his name is appearing in the space station, I think it's idiotic for them to not name the node Colbert. They had a public vote for the name. They allowed write in suggestions. The write in suggestion won because a TV personality made sure to make it a big deal. Name the node Colbert and, maybe, that TV personality will keep NASA in people's minds. If people are thinking about NASA a lot, it will be easier for NASA to do business (get funding, recruit minds, etc., etc., etc.). It's just stupid for them to not name it what the people voted for. What does it cost them? Oh noes! The name of the node isn't something "proper" like Tranquility! Whatever. Such a stupid decision.

But they never claimed that they would name the node after the #1 choice - they said they'd do a poll, and then decide themselves. Not totally ignoring the poll, obviously, but also not feeling bound by it no matter what, either.

And as I always say: all is fair if you predeclare. They didn't lie about it, so what's the problem?

Let me guess: you voted for "Colbert" (or possibly "Serenity" - or possibly both, multiple times), and you either didn't read the rules beforehand or somehow convinced yourself that they would go with the popular choice no matter what after all. But that's not NASA's problem, it's your problem.

Exactly what is the POINT of running a poll then, if they are going to pay no mind whatsoever to the results? I agree the "Colbert" voters were being tools, but the other entries on the list were perfectly acceptable and the winner of the poll, Serenity, is a perfectly appropriate name. It is also consistent with the NASA convention of naming things after particularly popular and inspirational science fiction vessels, as was the test shuttle Enterprise named for the starship Enterprise thanks to a massive write-in campaign by Trek fans. Naming the module Serenity would have shown that NASA still honors science fiction storytellers in the modern age, without whom the largest portion of interest in space and technology wouldn't be there.

Besides.. 'tranquility' IS SYNONYMOUS WITH 'serenity'. Same exact concept, but NASA wanted to use their own word, not the people's. This is NASA giving the middle finger to Serenity fans, no other way to interpret it. Dumb, dumb, stupid, idiot move, NASA. Way to be pricks for no good reason.

Yeah really stupid. Now they'll only get publicity when Colbert visits NASA, the first time its launched, the first time he interviews someone on it, etc. And they do it without pissing off international partners (it may be our node, but it ain't our space station).

To be fair, they DID say from the beginning that they reserved the right to pick a name themselves regardless of the poll's outcome.

I suspect that Colbert himself played a big role in this decision. He isn't going to drop out of character to say so, but Colbert-the-pundit is a character, and I imagine Colbert-the-person wasn't entirely comfortable saddling an "important" component of the space program (all ISS contempt aside) with the name of a comedy character. Their final decision still gave his character plenty of mileage -- "the treadmill is the really important part, the 'module' is just a box that the treadmill comes in" -- while preserving a bit of what many would perceive as decorum.

1) According to the site [nasa.gov], 1190437 people submitted votes or named selections. "Colbert" got 230539 [msn.com] and "Serenity" got about 190k. Even combined, the top two choices only got about 35 percent of the vote. Alone, "Colbert" got about 19% of the vote. Even if the poll results were not biased by ballot stuffing, all they make clear is that no matter what choice NASA made, 80 percent of the voters disagreed with it. In no reasonable sense did "Colbert" win an election -- if a candidate was voted into office with a plurality of only 19% of the vote, there would be calls for his head and the system would probably be reformed.

2)Can we please stop conflating whoever put this survey on with the entirety of NASA? Some small group of people within the organization are responsible for the survey and the name selection. Complain about Bill Gerstenmaier, as it appears that he bears some responsibility for the survey and the naming, or maybe the ISS Project Office.

3)The rules [discovermagazine.com] did make it clear that the contest "winner" wouldn't necessarily be picked for the module name. It even gives reasons why: "NASA reserves the right to ultimately select a name in accordance with the best interests of the agency, its needs, and other considerations. Such name may not necessarily be one which is on the list of voted-on candidate names." The ISS is a big international project, and it's possible that the naming of a module might have a diplomatic effect. Relations with the Russians, our major partners on the station, seem somewhat stressed, maybe even on station [kentucky.com]. So not selecting what may be viewed as the flippant choice for a module name seems the more diplomatically sound choice.

I'm not sure if it's on a par with the Committee for the Liberation and Integration of Terrifying Organisms and their Rehabilitation Into Society, though admittedly in the universe in which is exists it is not really a backronym.

I don't know. Maybe NASA could have named the whole module: Cosmic Operating Living Bubble for Environment, Refridgeration, and Treadmill. But now, Colbert will have to create his own module and send it up there: Comedian Over-Lord Base for the Earthly Reign of Terror.

I think it's great. It shows that NASA can take a joke, even a rigged election, and give it a nod. Which is what they have done. Other than naming the module after him, which would have been great too, they acknowledged Colbert with out making a big deal out of it.

If they could take a joke they would have named the module after him instead of copping out like this. If you are going to have a public poll for the name then you have to be prepared to accept the consequences. If you are not then pick the name yourself.

I'm not so sure they are going to take the joke lying down though. The last quote in the SFC article has some darker undertones.

"We don't typically name U.S. space station hardware after living people and this is no exception," Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations, said, adding: "We have invited Stephen to Florida for the launch of COLBERT and to Houston to try out a version of the treadmill that astronauts train on."

Yeah, I'm going to say that Colbert tried to rig the election by using his show as a platform. NASA did exactly the right thing. They acknowledged the attempt with a laugh and a nod. I can't think of any other Gobernment agency that wouldn't have bitched and made a big deal out of it. NASA scores some serous points in my book for still having a sense of humor.

But one poster said they should have named the toilet module after him. That would have been a great backlob for NASA.

This wasn't an election, it was a poll. Even removing Colbert from the equation they didn't go with the next popular choice, which would have been Serenity. They went with the eighth most popular choice. So in the end they just ignored the results of the poll and picked the one they liked the best, which they had the right to do. So yes, Colbert didn't rig it, but it was most definitely rigged.

Well for one, I was a bit disappointed, but now that I have had some time to consider it, the practice of ballot stuffing is very uncool. Colbert, through his exaggerated behavior, attempts to show the common stupidity of thought and practice we witness every day. This isn't the first time he sought to illustrate this. The most significant that comes to mind is the way he saved the elephants from extinction by having viewers stuff wikipedia. This is just more of the same.

cool fact about democracy: If you don't agree with something, vote against it.

What you are suggesting is throwing away legitimate votes - cast by real people and not bots - because *you* have some arbitrary rules about which votes should count and which should not. And that is not democratic.

How about a republic with a proportional allocation system like the rest of the civilized world, rather than the insanity we have here in the U.S.? If you're in the minority vote you still get a minority of parliament, and if you have enough minorities they start to outnumber the "majority".

Because we like to maintain our illusion that we vote for the person, not for the party.

Americans believe that the parties are corrupt, but individuals might not be, so we delude ourselves into thinking we're "voting for the [wo/]man not the party." Proportional vote wrecks this because either the party or some other entity gets to choose how to allocate the seats it gets, so it won't get much support for the time being.

The problem is that we also believe that although both parties are pretty evil the othe

Oh, and technically, the Nazis won a 33% of the seats in 1932, actually losing seats from their previous election. Hitler was made chancellor because Hindenburg appointed him, not because Hitler won the job through any operation of democracy. Hitler himself failed to form a majority coalition and asked Hindenburg to dissolve parliament for another election, which Hindenburg did. And then the Reichstag burned a week before the new elections, winning Hitler more seats, but STILL not enough to form a majori

Democracy is mob rule. The group gets to make the decision based on whatever information they get, regardless of the facts.

So 1/4 million folks voted for Colbert. It wasn't consistent with the theme, but they shouldn't have asked for a vote if they weren't going to accept the answer.

Democracy says, when the people vote, that's the way it works. So you're in a country of with 307 million people and an average IQ of 98. Just because it's what the people want doesn't mean it's the right thing. I think we've already proven that, unless the masses that have chosen to drive SUV's and eat fast food religiously are proof that it's what we should be doing.

The movie Idiocracy had a point. Well, several rather sad points. The Brawndo references were sad in that they were not only similar to current marketing, but working on current marketing concepts, and people honestly fall for it.

I'd prefer for people smarter than me to be running things. Unfortunately, that's rarely if ever the case. I would accept their answers more openly, knowing that they are based on educated opinions, rather than just whims.

Well, sure. But the thing I keep coming back to is this: democracy isn't about ensuring that we get good and wise leaders. No system can do that. It's about making sure we can kick the really bad ones out.

Here's something interesting. I'm only two degrees separated from Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar. We have a mutual friend. So whenever he's in the news, I always listen to what he is saying. Mostly, what he does is act for an apologist for the Saudi regime. One point he likes to make is that monarchi

I disagree. Colbert's a bombastic idiot (or at least he plays one on TV), but he's funny and he entertains a lot of people, usually including the targets of his behavior. Have you ever seen so many people interested in a node on the ISS? When was the last time a popular show's had one a couple of astronauts in the timespan Colbert has?

With me, Colbert's personality and manner is fun to watch, fun to maybe participate in if it's not malicious (as with this vote), and definitely not something to emulate. However, now we have a large portion of the nation who's interested in what's happening on the ISS and knows how to edit wikipedia. If they went to the site after his show, they even got to see a locked down article in place!

In short, I don't see Colbert's show as promoting this behavior, I see him as exploiting the fact that this is the way our society's willing to act right now. You're just killing the flamboyant messenger.

Off-mike, Rush is probably a very down-to-earth and friendly guy, just like Colbert.

So what?

They both say stupid, offensive things, labeling their corrosive vitriol as satire.

There's a big difference. You apparently really don't get Colbert. When Rush Limbaugh showed a picture of Chelsea Clinton, when she was just a child, and called her a "dog", if he claimed "satire" as his defence then he certainly wasn't claiming that he wasn't really making fun of her, he would have just been claiming that he was "satirizing" her and so it was OK to be cruel to a child.

However, when Colbert is over-the-top and goes after some target like saying that California's 50th Congressional District is "dead" to him for not supporting his friend Duke Cunningham enough, that is satire because he is not actually mad at the people of that district at all.

His satire is directed at the bombastic partisan space cadets that he emulates, like Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and Bill O'Reilly.

The point is that it is always bad to subvert or exploit the voting process when it is made available. And such actions should ALWAYS be protested.

I think that Colbert may very well agree with you. As he turns each exploit into a public spectacle, he raises awareness of these problems and brings them into discussion. Raising awareness of these issues is a very good first step to solving them.

Putting this into another light, what do you think about security researchers who publicly release software exploit information? They have found a weakness in some process, exploited it and then released that information to the public - often receiving acclaim and publicity for their work. Do you protest their acts, as well?

He didn't rig the vote, he campaigned in a single episode. He basically said "I want my name on that station, vote for me." This is no different than any political vote or any other vote of any kind really. He won fair and square, and people are bitching about it because he isn't a serious guy? that is stupid.

It is simple: Colbert won doing what people do in every voting situation and won. If NASA wants to use their loophole and do whatever they want then that is well within their rights, but people need to stop bitching about how he did something wrong and realize this is how voting functions.

...democracy is thrown out when it suits. Its not like Colbert was an offensive name. I'd be insulted were i Colbert.

Who knows, it might have been his idea (or his writers') down to the acronym. *I* on the other hand, am insulted. Not surprised (look at the state of national elections in this country) but insulted. And I certainly think the less of NASA for tricking people into thinking that they were listening.